In this episode of The Texan Recap, General Audio Producer Amrutha Mummidi chats about student Katherine Snedeker’s Gray for Glioblastoma Foundation, which was recently an official charity partner for the Austin Marathon. Plus, UT’s Disability Cultural Center is celebrating its first full year on campus.

Reported by Chloe Ching and Emily DeMotte. Edited and supervised by Jack Lewellyn. Cover art by Emma Berke. Music by Top Flow Productions.

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Amrutha Mummidi: One UT senior’s nonprofit raises over ten thousand dollars for charity …and the Disability Cultural Center has new plans after celebrating its first anniversary.

I’m your host this week, Amrutha Mummidi and this is The Texan Recap.

Here’s what you missed this week.

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Amrutha: Kate Snedeker, a UT senior, and her nonprofit organization raised over ten thousand dollars for charity after partnering with the Austin Marathon. General Life & Arts Reporter Chloe Ching is here with the story. Thanks for being here, Chloe.

Chloe Ching: Thank you for having me.

Amrutha: Can you provide us with some background on Kate Snedeker? Why did she found this nonprofit?

Chloe: So Kate’s dad was diagnosed with glioblastoma. And that kind of made her realize that there was a lack of community and awareness around this disease. She mentioned how when he was diagnosed, she searched up on Google, like just the disease in general. And it was all negative feedback and comments. And so she kind of felt like she didn’t have a community. And so she wanted to create one herself. And that’s how it started.

Amrutha: In your article, you spoke with Katie about her work directly. Can you go over some of what she said?

Chloe: Yeah, so it’s really fascinating to hear about her work because she’s been able to grow her platform in such a short amount of time. They haven’t even been a nonprofit for two years. And it’s also interesting how she’s able to use influencers. Because through influencers, you can kind of use other brands and also use their big platform to raise awareness. So that was interesting.

Amrutha: You talked with one of the volunteer vendors for your story, what did they tell you?

Chloe: So the runner I talked to had been training in the fall of this year. And she mentioned that the course is a lot harder than she expected because it’s really hilly in Austin. But with the support of people on the sideline, she said the Austin was very high energy. So it was a lot of fun. It really encouraged her and despite the cold weather, she will go quickly. And yeah, she said was really high energy.

Amrutha: Are there any planned events or partnerships for Gray for Glioblastoma coming up?

Chloe: They have an event this weekend called Battle of the Bands. And then they also have…so Brain Cancer Awareness Month coming up and so they do an event for that as well. And then Kate when I interviewed her mentioned an event in the Hamptons that she seems really excited about, so I’m curious to see that progress. And then they have an annual gala in D.C. They’ll have another one this year.

Amrutha: Amazing. Well, once again, that was General Life & Arts Reporter Chloe Ching. Thanks again for your time.

Chloe: Of course, thank you.

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Amrutha: UT’s Disability Cultural Center is celebrating its first full year on campus. General News Reporter Emily DeMotte is here to tell us all about it. Thanks for joining me, Emily.

Emily DeMotte: Thank you so much for having me.

Amrutha: First, can you tell me more about the Disability Cultural Center? 

Emily: Yeah, so the DCC first opened their doors last January. It’s kind of been in progress for a long time. It was largely open because of the work of student advocacy groups such as the Disability Advocacy Student Coalition, Student Senate and the Disability and Advocacy Agency of the Student Government. So through their work, they’ve kind of been able to open their doors and get funding and create a staff and that’s how they’ve been able to open the DCC. 

And kind of what their goal is, is so Disability and Access has been around for a long time, and they kind of fell more of the compliance and the administrative tasks and handling students paperwork, and so they have accommodations, but the DCC is able to step in and kind of fill some of those gaps and provide community space where both disabled and non-disabled members of the UT community are able to meet and celebrate disability as both a culture and an identity.

Amrutha: What has the DCC accomplished over this last year?

Emily: Yeah, so in the last year, they’ve been able to take on and expand some of the programs that Disability and Access kind of used to put on so that kind of includes the Disability Graduation is one of them, so they’ve kind of taken them and made them our own and expanded on them. But they’ve also created some of their own programs, such as DCC hangouts and a few other programs. And they’re also always expanding. So they also do a lot of other work with campus organizations such as Texas LEAD and the Career Engagement Center. They do limited-time events with them, so they’re just always looking for ways to engage with the UT community.

Amrutha: In your article, you spoke with the founding director of the DCC, what did they say?

Emily: The funding director is Emily Shryock. She’s the director of DCC’s five-person staff, which includes two graduate assistants and two undergraduate assistants, and Emily just kind of gave me the rundown of what the DCC means for the UT community, the safe space that it can provide and the way that it can fill in the gaps, and she really wanted to emphasize to me that it can be a place for anyone that they really try to be a place for anybody to feel safe and to be welcome. Regardless if you identify as somebody with a disability or not, they just want to be able to open their doors and be a place where anybody can learn and be educated and be advocated for.

Amrutha: Do you know anything the DCC has planned for their second year on campus?

Emily: This semester, they have started their new ADHD Cohort, as well as their new one-on-one support sessions. So those are some of their newest programs. And you can find any of their programs or events happening on their website, they have an event page, and they’re also continuing a lot of their previously existing programs. 

But something that Emily did mention to me and our interview is that as a new organization, they’ve just had a lot of flexibility to kind of try something new every semester based on what they’re hearing from students and the community and faculty and just anybody that kind of shares their feedback. So whatever they hear, they kind of can try something new each semester. And that’s kind of been one of the blessings of being a new organization for them.

Amrutha: Once again, that was General News Reporter Emily DeMotte. Thanks again for your time.

Emily: Thank you

Amrutha: And that’s The Texan Recap for the week of February 19th. I’m Amrutha Mummidi.

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Amrutha: The Texan Recap is a production of The Daily Texan Audio Department.

If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe to The Daily Texan on your streaming platform of choice and follow us on Twitter @texanaudio. 

This episode was hosted by me, Amrutha Mummidi, and edited and supervised by Jack Lewellyn.

Special thanks to Chloe Ching and Emily DeMotte for their reporting and to Joelle Dipaolo, Mimi Calzada and Chloe Moore for contributing to this project. 

Cover art is by Emma Berke and music is by Top Flow Productions. To read the news stories in this episode or see more from the Texan, head on over to www.thedailytexan.com. 

Thanks for listening, and I’ll see you next week.